Social activities and mobile lead growth prospects in Europe

European markets saw growth in a number of key areas in the digital arena last year, including social networking, smartphones and mobile media usage, and connected media devices.

The UK and Netherlands led in engagement in 2010, with users in both markets spending approximately 25% more time online in a month than the European average of 24.3 hours, according to new research from comScore.

The research shows that Europeans spent the most time on search, social networking, and directory sites. However, Facebook claimed the largest share of Europeans’ time – 11.7%.

Europe experienced a 10.9% gain in social networking penetration over 2010 – the highest seen in any global region, according to comScore.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook was the leading social networking site in 15 out of the 18 markets. However, local social networks in the Netherlands, Poland, and Russia continued to retain their majority share of the market.

Display advertising reached 97% of users in the UK, France, and Germany in December 2010. In all three markets, social media was the leading publisher category serving display ads.

Europe also experienced significant growth in the use of online coupon sites – up 162% in 2010, showing coupon sites emerging as a key driver of online consumer behaviour.

Although the number of unique online video viewers in Europe held steady overall, there was significant growth in video viewership to TV sites, comScore said.

Smartphone penetration in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy grew to reach 31.1% of mobile users in 2010. comScore attribute this growth to Google and Apple – with Google’s Android operating system experiencing a 951% gain and Apple experiencing a 115% gain.

Meanwhile, Google continues to lead the search market in Europe, reaching 9 out of 10 Europeans.

Click here for comScore’s ‘The 2010 Europe Digital Year in Review’.